Space-time distortions help find hidden galaxies

didn't see this anywhere else.....

Space-time distortions help find hidden galaxies
Discovery could shed light on formation of the early universe and galaxies

Previously hidden behind veils of dust, ancient galaxies have been detected using an
effect caused by the space-time distortions in the vast distance between those galaxies and
Earth.

The discovery of the distant galaxies could shed light on formation of the early universe
and galaxies, researchers said

rest of the story: www.msnbc.msn.com...#

reply to post by Pauligirl


Intersting stuff, This Choi guys is a pretty smart cookie. Google his name and see what else he has wrote about

Typically, finding gravitational lenses is very time-consuming. Now, using data from the Herschel Space Telescope, a large, international research team has found that gravitationally lensed galaxies can be detected easily in submillimeter wavelengths of light if a sufficiently wide area of the sky is searched.

This is part I really don't get. Can anybody out there explain in really simple terms?

reply to post by Pauligirl


as far as i can understand
a wide angle camera set up to capture a specific wave lenght of light can show where gravity distorts space time enought to have a lensing effect on objects that would normally be hidden behind other objects

it seams to me the grav distortion is reflecting small wave lenght light and theis enables scientists to pin point where to search for these distortions

this narrows the search

IMHO

xp

reply to post by Pauligirl


Gravitational lensing involves using something that has a very strong gravitational force to distort the light passing by it so that we can "see" something that is much farther away - or at least determine that it is present - by the distorted image that we see near the edge of the object with a strong gravitational force.

check this site: en.wikipedia.org...

This was something that helped to confirm some of Einstein's theories, when scientists looked for evidence of light bending near the edge of the sun during solar eclipses. The gravitational pull of the sun bent the light rays passing close by it so that they were bent towards us so that we could see the object that would otherwise be blocked from view by the sun. What was seen was objects like stars that were viewable near the edge of the sun when they should have been entirely blocked by the sun.

In a similar way, astronomers can look for objects far behind a known galaxy to determene the presence of another object behind the galaxy using the same effect.